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Assignments

Your written critique should be composed of three sections as described below.

1. Goals

Please include a short list of any personal goals you set or specific things that you chose to do that you believed would make your first day with your students a success.

2. Summary

Using a narrative style, briefly describe (1-3 paragraphs) your first teaching day with your new undergraduates. If you teach more than one section you need only describe one of your sections. In this summary please feel free to describe any events that you wish, but consider emphasizing those that most-directly relate to the goals listed above.

3. Reflection

Reflections differ from summaries in that they do not attempt to objectively report the events as they happened. Rather reflections are written to express how one interprets and/or is influenced by the events. Using Hayward's paper* as a lens, please reflect on your first class meeting with your students. Select one or more of the issues Hayward raises and discuss (1-3 paragraphs) your first class in terms of those topics.

Reflection Ideas: This reflection technique may be new for many of you. Here are a few ideas to get you started: You may want to reflect on your planning and how that planning affected your first class meeting. Perhaps you designed a "get-acquainted" exercise as described in the paper – what were your feelings about doing such an activity with your new students? Maybe you decided to focus on expectations – how did you design and deliver "course expectations" and what were the results?

Note: These are only ideas to get you started thinking. Remember, we have been discussing teaching as a personal endeavor that you improve upon over time. No one expects that you will be trying to make many changes all at once. Likewise, I certainly don't expect that your reflections will cover too many topics either.

*Hayward's paper is titled: You Never Get a Second chance to Make a First Impression: The Importance of the First Day of Class